Jason Statham stars in one of the worst video game flops of all time

Director Uwe Ball has a reputation as one of the worst film directors of all time. In the mid-2000s, he created a series of highly publicized but criticized video game adaptations, which immediately sank to the bottom of the box office. He directed House of the Dead in 2003 and Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne in 2005. He followed them up with ‘In the Name of King: A Dungeon Siege Tale’, ‘BloodRayne 2: Deliverance’ and ‘Postal’ in 2007, and in 2008 he completed his run with ‘Far Cry’. Fans of the games on which the films are based were outraged that Ball handled the source material so clumsily, and fans of the cinematic medium were outraged that

Despite his critical reputation, Ball remained prolific, sometimes producing several pictures a year. He directed The First Shift and Bandidos in 2024, and plans to release The Run in 2025.

I spoke with Ball for an interview, and it’s easy to see why he continues to work. He is talkative, intelligent and pragmatic. When confronted with his critical reputation, Ball usually shrugs, offering a “whatever” response, feeling that his achievement in making the film trumps anything critics can say. He is also an ideas man, able to succinctly explain film processing in a way that makes them seem intriguing. He loves making movies and that’s all he needs.

Moreover, all of Ball’s films have an illogically impressive cast. He said that he usually just calls famous actors on the weekends when they’re filming and asks if they’re free. If they want a few dollars to sit on a throne and read a few lines, maybe taking six hours on a Saturday, then they’re in the movie. Some disgraced actors request to arrange their return through Boll.

That certainly had to be the case with In the Name of the King, which starred Jason Statham and Ron Perlman, along with Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, John Rhys-Davies and Matthew Lillard.

“In the Name of King” was based on “Dungeon Siege”, a medieval fantasy role-playing game released by Gas Powered Games in 2002. The story tells about the evil magician Galian (Liot), who inhabited the circle of the country of Ehb with evil monsters. A simple man known only as Farmer (Statham) is able to defend his farm, but loses his son in the attack and his wife (Claire Forlani) is kidnapped. Farmer and his friends Norick (Perlman) and Bastian (Will Sanderson) go on a quest to save Farmer’s wife. Eventually, through his prowess on the battlefield, Farmer will come to the attention of King Conrad (Reynolds) and be adopted as his son.

The theatrical version of In the Name of the King was 127 minutes long, although Ball’s 156-minute director’s cut was released on Blu-ray. Not that the extra footage helped much. In the Name of King received terrible reviews, earning only a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 51 reviews). Critics felt that the performances were one-sidedly bad and the production noticeably low. Despite the film’s budget reaching around $60 million, it was the most expensive film of Ball’s career. Mark Saulov of the Austin Chronicle compared “The King” with the works of Edward D. Wood Jr. and Laura Kern of the New York Times noted that everyone on screen looked stunned, as if they were playing dress-up rather than making a movie.

The film also lost a lot of money. That $60 million budget only returned $13 million worldwide. Many video game fans already knew Ball’s work from House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark and chose to stay away. Ball claimed he was a genius.

Once the blood was in the water, In the Name of the King’s reputation only grew. It was solid proof that Uwe Boll was the Ed Wood of his generation, missing only Wood’s quirkiness, idiosyncratic dialogue, and sexual fetishes. The Razzies nominated In the Name of the King in five categories, including Worst Picture. Ball won for Worst Director, although the film “lost” that year’s top prize, Love Guru.

Interestingly, even though Dungeon Siege was a huge bomb and became one of the most openly hated films in recent years, the Dungeon Siege IP still had enough influence to warrant several follow-up films . In 2011, Ball reinterpreted the plot of the original film and decided to make it a time travel story, taking modern man and placing him in the world of Dungeon Siege. The sequel, titled In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds, stars Dolph Lundgren as a modern-day soldier who is magically transported back to the Middle Ages. While one might expect an Army of Darkness-style farce, the film is neither action-packed nor funny. Its biggest selling point is that it was made for just $4.5 million. That’s modest, even for a direct-to-video release. Lundgren was the only known celebrity this time.

Then, in 2014, Ball returned with In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission. This film stars Dominic Purcell from Prison Break and retains the time travel element from the second film. Purcell played a killer who is thrown back in time thanks to a magical amulet. He fights dragons, etc. d. This one cost just $3.5 million. Perhaps it is enough to admit that it exists.

After that, Ball seems to have given up on video game adaptations, moving on to other genre films and supporting projects. Ball claimed that his films were good and that many were better known Hollywood directors of sleaze. Say what you will about Ball, the man sticks to his guns.